Abstract:

The purpose of the study was to investigate relationships which existed between levels of perceived leadership effectiveness and selected dimensions of thinking style among chief student affairs administrators in four-year colleges and universities. The initial research sample consisted of 96 randomly selected chief student affairs administrators and selected professional student affairs staff members who reported directly to chief student affairs administrators.Chief student affairs administrators completed the Level 1: Life Styles Inventory, comprised of 240 short phrases and words producing a twelve-dimension thinking style profile. Professional student affairs staff members (subordinates) completed the thirty-item Leadership Effectiveness Questionnaire (L.E.Q.). The L.E.Q. allowed subordinate student affairs staff to evaluate levels of leadership effectiveness of superordinate administrators on 30 specific task and relationship behaviors identified by practicing student affairs professionals as being important behaviors for effective leadership in student affairs.Sixty-three chief student affairs administrators and 293 subordinate student affairs staff members were included in data analysis. Responses of subordinates from each institution to the L.E.Q. were averaged to obtain a single leadership effectiveness score for respective chief student affairs administrators. The distribution of scores was divided into four equal sub-groups based on quartile splits of the total distribution of scores.Multivariate analysis of variance procedures (MANOVA), subsequent analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post-hoc Nevnan-Keuls procedures there appropriate, were utilized to test 12 null hypotheses pertaining to perceived leadership effectiveness and thinking style among chief student affairs administrators at the .05 level.Findings of the study included the following:1. No significant differences were found among sub-groups of chief student affairs administrators when responses to all 12 scales of the Level 1: Life Styles Inventory were grouped together.2. Ten of 12 dimensions with no significant differences were: (a) humanistic-helpful, (b) affiliative, (c) conventional, (d) avoidance, (e) oppositional, (f) power, (g) competition, (h) competence, (i) achievement, and (j) self-actualization.3. Significant differences on the approval and dependent thinking style dimensions existed between chief student affairs administrators who were perceived by subordinates to be low-average in leadership effectiveness and administrators who were perceived to be high-average or high in leadership effectiveness.